Study: Health views vary along ethnic lines

A new study suggests that how you rate your healthcare provider may depend somewhat on your ethnic background. The study, which will be published in the journal Health Affairs, found that minorities are more likely than white patients to rate their healthcare as fair or poor, particularly Chinese-Americans, blacks born in Africa and Vietnamese-Americans. This is a particular concern given that improving patients' perception of their care is important to improving outcomes; patients who don't feel their care is satisfactory spend less time with physicians and may suffer as a result. Unfortunately, many minorities feel that their time spent with doctors isn't that productive. While three-quarters of whites reported that their doctor listened to them carefully, that percentage fell sharply, to 62 percent, for Korean-Americans, and 58 percent for Central and South Americans. These statistics were drawn from a survey of 4,334 adults by researchers with Harvard University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

To get more data from the study:
- read this Associated Press piece

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